Vandalism as a Symbolic Act in Free Zones

Författare

Hans-Edvard Roos

Redaktör

Christensen Harriet H.
Johnson Darryll J.
Brookes Martha H.

Summary, in English

The concept of vandalism is analyzed as a symbolic act. An analysis of vandalism

from a situational-positivistic, or a motivational-psychological, approach hardly gives

an understanding of vandalism as a meaningful individual and social act. A humanistic

and cultural perspective can supply ways to understand a nonprescribed behavior

such as vandalism. The original meaning of vandalism is plundering and laying

waste of a civilization's symbols and environment. This appropriation of physical environment

also occurs in the industrialized societies' urban environment and then

often is perceived as motiveless. "Free zones" develop in societies where norms

and obligations are neutralized. Vandalism is nonprescribed in that it appears in

these free zones where norms, obligations, utility, and common sense are switched

off. The environment is "marked" by damaging or destroying objects to change the

message of the physical milieu. Vandalism is a gesture of "negative honor," which

reflects a complex of feelings. Vandalism comprises two sides of an autonomy problem:

to be isolated from an unwanted membership (juvenile vandalism) and to be

free of an unwanted outside position (adult vandalism). An essential question is

which methodological and theoretical concepts a researcher in the social sciences

should use to discover the rationality of vandalism and to make it comprehensible.

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